“Lock the doors!” she cried. It was too late. The passenger door was wrenched open. She felt the horror of violent hands invading the car, touching her, clawing at her, tearing her clothes, pulling her hair. She fought back, biting, scratching, hitting; but it was no use. Numb with fear, she was dragged out of her seat and across the road and flung down into the grass. But what she feared did not occur. Jim too had been dragged out, but he had more strength and she saw him trying to wrestle his assailants. They only redoubled their blows until he collapsed and lay still in the middle of the road.
“Oh, no!” she rushed to kneel beside him.
Now she heard a new and sickening sound as baseball bats rained down on the car from all sides. Jim’s pride and joy, their gleaming near new Triumph 2000, looked as if it had been involved in a multiple-car crash.
Helpless, she watched, unable to speak in sheer terror.
Their work of destruction done, the masked figures drew back while one of them wrote on the car with spray paint. The man threw the can away, came close to Susan and spat at her.
“Pakeha scum! You took our land. This is pay back,” he hissed.
As Susan bent over her bleeding husband, she heard laughter and more taunts, doors were slammed, engines roared, and the two large and battered cars sped off down the road leaving a trail of expletives, screeching tyres and exhaust fumes.
She looked at the wreck of their car. In the headlights of the last departing car she had read the crudely written words:
It was the challenge issued by Chief Rewi Maniapoto during the battle of the Orakau Pa, meaning “We will fight on for ever and ever!”
“I know it’s serious, Sir, and we’re following up several leads at the moment. And I believe Jim McAndrew’s injuries were not serious.”
Detective Inspector Ian Molloy of the Auckland C.I.B. held the phone in one hand and wiped his brow with the other. He and Detective Sergeant Piriaka had been working in the Te Kuiti area for sixteen hours. They had been sent down from Auckland because they had recently been investigating similar hold-up cases in Rotorua, Ruatoria and Turangi.
“That’s not the point,” continued the Commissioner. “The media have been giving us hell. They’re saying that no one’s safe on the roads any more. What’s more, they’ve got hold of the fact that the police haven’t made any arrests. My Minister says it’s a political disaster. He’s accused of being soft on Maori thugs, and the Opposition are yelling law and order for all they’re worth. There’s even talk of a snap election.” Inspector Molloy swore under his breath. Why didn’t the Commissioner come up to Te Kuiti and find out for himself?
“The name on the McAndrew car was Maniapoto Republic, but we’ve talked to the local marae at Te Kuiti, and they didn’t know anything about it. And we’ve been to the marae at Taumarunui and to the gangs at Taumarunui and Te Kuiti and it’s the same answer.”
“The public have another view. Do you know that after each attack a vigilante group of beefy young Pakehas is formed in the area, and they call themselves the Highway Watch or some such name?”
“Yes, they were demonstrating outside the marae at Te Kuiti and trying to tell us our job.”
“It’s worse than that. They’re saying there are too many Maori in the force and they’re turning to private protection. Some Pakeha drivers are reported to keep a pistol under the driver’s seat when they go on roads where there have been assaults.”
“Hmm, that won’t make our job any easier.”
“Do something, Inspector.”
“Sir.”
Ian Molloy looked across the office to Sergeant Matthew Piriaka. “Any ideas?”
“Only that the attackers are not very original.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Always night, always balaclavas, tattoos, knives, baseball bats, spray can, nearly always the same words, claiming rangatiratanga, same tag except that the Republic varies according to the tribal district – Arawa at Rotorua, Ngati Porou at Ruatoria, Tuwharetoa at Turangi, and now Maniapoto at Te Kuiti. The trouble is the victims are so scared they don’t notice anything.”
“What are you getting at, Sergeant?”
“It looks as if we’re watching not a hold-up but a performance.”
Ian Molloy was an experienced detective who had been under cross-examination in many a closely fought court case and knew the value of hard, irrefutable evidence. He looked at the young Maori sergeant suspiciously. This was the sort of smart comment that he didn’t appreciate. “I don’t understand.”
“Everyone says the hold-ups are political, all to do with Maori rights. I’m not so sure. I wonder if they’re only meant to look political.”
Inspector Molloy growled. “Just cut out the politics, Sergeant. Get some proper evidence.”
Matthew Piriaka walked slowly out to his car. He felt uncomfortable being Maori on this case. Some people had even suggested that he should be taken off because of racial bias. But it wasn’t just a police matter. He was Tainui. His ancestors had suffered under confiscation in the Waikato. It was impossible to be Maori and not feel some sympathy for the cause which the republics were supposedly drawing attention to, even though you didn’t go along with the violence.
He was a New Zealander as much as a Maori. It was bad enough that the hold-ups were dividing his own people but worse still that the whole country was being ripped apart. And he was supposed not to notice it.
Sometimes being a policeman made him sick.
CHAPTER 19
Kate sat on her settee drinking her fourth cup of coffee and fuming.
Since the Alpine Sports Club meeting and her conversation with Kevin, she had hardly slept. Both by her profession as an accountant and by nature she was a person who prided herself on being organised and completely in control of a situation.
Now her ordered world was disintegrating.
She could no longer look at the Keulemans reproduction and had thrust it into the lowest corner of her desk. Her appointment pad for the day was empty. She had put her phone on answerphone and she didn’t bother to check the calls. What was the point? Any moment the phone call or message would come from Wildlife or Forestry to say that she had lost her advocacy job.
That little Hitler! That jumped-up robot of a man! He’s a liar too!
Then she told herself, Stop getting your knickers in a twist about that man. Calm down and start thinking!
She put down her coffee and went to her desk for the Keulemans photo. She studied it long and hard with a microscope. After that she called up one of her friends in the Ornithological Society.
“I’m going to write about Kevin for the Notornis. You’ve been on several trips with him. Would you mind giving me your own personal impressions?”
Perhaps it was not quite honest. She didn’t feel at all like writing such an article in the Society’s magazine.
After several calls she had found out nothing new. Kevin was a shy bachelor who lived on his own and his only interest appeared to be birds. It was not until the sixth call that she began taking notes.
“Oh, he’s a whiz with his camera and video, but it’s the work which he does afterwards that’s amazing. I remember he showed us the video he did on Tiri. He was able to produce close-up shots of the kokako with them doing all sorts of things which we hadn’t seen.”
She paused. The accomplishment was not surprising. The art of creating composite photos or scenes was increasingly important in the media, especially in TV advertisements, and was now being used by budding Alpine Sports Club film makers. Kevin was evidently up with the latest techniques.